"Poor Philip!" exclaimed Agnes, the tears, in spite of every effort,

swelling in her eyes, and rolling over her fair pale cheek. "Poor

Philip! And did he think his Agnes would have tried to shake the

resolution which cost him such pangs to maintain? Oh, no! She would

have aided him to fix it, and to bear it."

"He feared not your constancy, lady," replied the bishop of Senlis.

"He feared his own. I have heard that fortitude is a woman's virtue;

and, in truth, I now believe it. But I must do my errand; for, in

faith, lady, I cannot see you weep:"--and the good minister wiped a

bright drop from his own clear, cold eye. "Having at last seen the

king," he proceeded, "he has commanded me to take strict care that all

the attendants you please to name should accompany you; that your

household expenses should be charged upon his domains, as that of the

queen of France; and having, from all things, good hope that the pope,

satisfied with this submission to his authority, will proceed

immediately to verify the divorce pronounced by the bishops, so that

your separation may be short--"

"Ha! What?" exclaimed Agnes, starting up, and catching the bishop's

arm with both her hands, while she gazed in his face with a look of

thunderstruck, incredulous astonishment--"What is it you say? Is there

a chance--is there a hope--is there a possibility that I may see him

again--that I may clasp his hand--that I may rest on his bosom once

more? O God! O God! blessed be thy holy name!" and falling on her

knees, she turned her beautiful eyes to heaven; while, clasping her

fair hands, and raising them also, trembling with emotion, towards the

sky, her lips moved silently, but rapidly, in grateful, enthusiastic

thanksgiving.

"But, oh!" she cried, starting up, and fixing her eager glance upon

the minister, "as you are a churchman, as you are a knight, as you are

a man! do not deceive me! Is there a hope--is there even a remote

hope? Does Philip think there is a hope?

"It appears to me, lady," replied the minister,--"and for no earthly

consideration would I deceive you,--that there is every cause to hope.

Our holy father the pope would not take the matter of the king's

divorce even into consideration, till the monarch submitted to the

decision of the church of Rome, which, he declared, was alone

competent to decide upon the question,--a right which the bishops of

France, he said, had arrogated unjustly to themselves."

"And did he," exclaimed Agnes solemnly--"did he cast his curse upon

this whole country--spread misery, desolation, and sorrow over the

nation--stir up civil war and rebellion, and tear two hearts asunder

that loved each other so devotedly, for the empty right to judge a

cause that had been already judged, and do away a sentence which he

knew not whether it was right or wrong?--and is this the

representative of Christ's apostle?"

"'Tis even as you say, lady, I am afraid," replied the minister. "But

even suppose his conduct to proceed from pride and arrogance,--which

Heaven forbid that I should insinuate!--our hope would be but

strengthened by such an opinion. For, contented with having

established his right and enforced his will, he will of course

commission a council to inquire into the cause, and decide according

to their good judgment. What that decision will be, is only known on

high; but as many prelates of France will of course sit in that

council, it is not likely that they will consent to reverse their own

judgment."

"And what thinks the king?" demanded Agnes thoughtfully.

"No stronger proof, lady, can be given, that he thinks as I do,"

replied Guerin, "than his determination that you should never be far

from him; so that, as soon as the papal decision shall be announced in

his favour, he may fly to reunite himself to her he will ever look

upon as his lawful wife. He begs, madam, that you would name that

royal château which you would desire for your residence--"

"Then I am not to quit France!" cried Agnes, hope and joy once more

beaming up in her eyes. "I am not to put wide, foreign lands between

us, and the journey of many a weary day! Oh! 'tis too much! 'tis too

much!" and sinking back into the chair where she had been sitting

before the minister's entrance, she covered her eyes with her hands,

and let the struggle between joy and sorrow flow gently away in tears.

Guerin made a movement as if to withdraw; but the queen raised her

hand, and stopped him. "Stay, my lord bishop, stay!" she said--"These

are tears such as I have not shed for long; and there is in them a

balmy quality that will soothe many of the wounds in my heart. Before

you go, I must render some reply to my dear lord's message. Tell him,

as my whole joy in life has been to be with him, so my only earthly

hope is to rejoin him soon. Thank him for all the blessed comfort he

has sent me by your lips; and say to him that it has snatched his

Agnes from the brink of despair. Say, moreover, that I would fain,

fain see him, if it will not pain him too deeply, before I take my

departure from the halls where I have known so much happiness. But bid

him not, on that account, to give his heart one pang to solace mine.

And now, my lord, I will choose my residence. Let me see. I will not

say Compiègne! for, though I love it well, and have here many a dear

memory, yet, I know, Philip loves it too; and I would that he should

often inhabit some place that is full of remembrances of me. But there

is a castle on the woody hill above Mantes where once, in the earliest

days of our marriage, we spent a pleasant month. It shall be my

widow's portion, till I see my lord again. Oh! why, why, why must we

part at all? But no!" she added more firmly, "it is doubtless right

that it should be so: and, if we may thus buy for our fate the blessed

certainty of never parting again, I will not think--I will try not to

think--the price too dear."

"Perhaps, madam, if I might venture to advise," said the minister,

"the interview you desire with the king would take place the last

thing before your departure."

Agnes drooped her head. "My departure!" said she mournfullyeg. "True!

'twill be but one pain for all. I have ordered my departure for this

evening, because I thought that the sooner I were gone, the sooner

would the pain be over for Philip; but oh, lord bishop, you know not

what it is to take such a resolution of departure--to cut short, even

by one brief minute, that fond lingering with which we cling to all

the loved objects that have surrounded us in happiness. But it is

right to do it, and it shall be done: my litter shall be here an hour

before supper; what guards you and the king think necessary to escort

me, I will beg you to command at the hour of three. But I hope," she

added, in an almost imploring tone,--"I hope I shall see my husband

before I go?"

"Doubt it not, madam," said Guerin: "I have but to express your

desire. Could I but serve you farther?"

"In nothing, my good lord," replied the queen, "but in watching over

the king like a father. Soothe his ruffled mood; calm his hurt mind;

teach him not to forget Agnes, but to bear her absence with more

fortitude than she can bear his. And now, my lord," she added, wiping

the tears once more from her eyes, "I will go and pray, against that

dreadful hour. I have need of help, but Heaven will give it me; and if

ever woman's heart broke in silence, it shall be mine this night."

Guerin took his leave and withdrew; and, proceeding to the cabinet of

Philip Augustus, gave him such an account of his conversation with the

queen, as he thought might soothe and console him, without shaking his

resolution of parting from her, at least for a time. Philip listened,

at first, in gloomy silence; but, as every now and then, through the

dry account given by his plain minister, shone out some touch of the

deep affection borne him by his wife, a shade passed away from his

brow, and he would exclaim, "Ha! said she so? Angel! Oh, Guerin, she

is an angel!" Then starting up, struck by some sudden impulse, he

paced the room with hasty and irregular steps.

"A villain!" cried he at length--"a villain!--Thibalt d'Auvergne,

beware thy head!--By the blessed rood! Guerin, If I lay my hands upon

him, I will cut his false heart from his mischief-devising breast!

Fiend! fiend! to strive to rob me of an angel's love like that! He has

fled me, Guerin!--he has fled me for the time. You have doubtless

heard, within five minutes, he and his train had left the town behind

him. 'Twas the consciousness of villany drove him to flight. But I

will find him, if I seek him in the heart of Africa! The world shall

not hold us two."

Guerin strove to calm the mind of the king, but it was in vain; and,

till the hour approached for the departure of Agnes from the castle,

Philip spent the time either in breathing vows of vengeance against

his adversaries, or in pacing up and down, and thinking, with a wrung

and agonised heart, over the dreadful moment before him. At length he

could bear it no longer; and, throwing open the door of his cabinet,

he walked hastily towards the queen's apartments. Guerin followed, for

a few paces, knowing that the critical moment was arrived when France

was to be saved or lost--doubting the resolution of both Agnes and

Philip, and himself uncertain how to act.

But before Philip had passed through the corridor, he turned to the

minister, and, holding up his hand, with an air of stern majesty he

said, "Alone, Guerin! I must be alone! At three, warn me!" and he

pursued his way to the queen's apartment.

The next hour we must pass over in silence; for no one was witness to

a scene that required almost more than mortal fortitude to support. At

three, the queen's litter was in the castle court, the serjeants of

arms mounted to attend her, and the horses of her ladies held ready to

set out. With a heart beating with stronger emotions than had ever

agitated it in the face of adverse hosts, Guerin approached the

apartments of Agnes de Meranie. He opened the door, but paused without

pushing aside the tapestry, saying, "My lord!"

"Come in," replied Philip, in a voice of thunder; and Guerin,

entering, beheld him standing in the midst of the floor with Agnes

clinging to him, fair, frail, and faint, with her arms twined round

his powerful frame, like the ivy clinging round some tall oak agitated

by a storm. The kings face was heated, his eyes were red, and the

veins of his temples were swelled almost to bursting. "She shall not

go!" cried he, as Guerin entered, in a voice both raised and shaken by

the extremity of his feelings--"By the Lord of heaven! she shall not

go!"

There was energy in his tone, almost to madness; and Guerin stood

silent, seeing all that he had laboured to bring about swept away in

that moment. But Agnes slowly withdrew her arms from the king, raised

her weeping face from his bosom, clasped her hands together, and gazed

on him for a moment with a glance of deep and agonised feeling--then

said, in a low but resolute voice, "Philip, it must be done! Farewell,

beloved! farewell!" and, running forward towards the door, she took

the arm of one of her women, to support her from the chamber.

Before she could go, however, Philip caught her again in his arms, and

pressed kiss after kiss upon her lips and cheek. "Help me! help me!"

said Agnes, and two of her women, gently disengaging her from the

king's embrace, half bore, half carried her down the stairs, and,

raising her into the litter, drew its curtains round, and veiled her

farther sorrows from all other eyes.

When she was gone, Philip stood for a moment gazing, as it were, on

vacancy--twice raised his hand to his head--made a step or two towards

the door--reeled--staggered--and fell heavily on the floor, with the

blood gushing from his mouth and nostrils.

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

VOLUME THE THIRD.

CHAPTER I.

The Count d'Auvergne left Agnes de Meranie, with his mind stretched to

the highest point of excitement. For months and months he had been

dwelling on the thoughts of that one moment. In the midst of other

scenes and circumstances, his soul had been abstracted and busy with

the anticipations of that hour. His whole powers and energies had been

wrought up to bear it firmly and calmly. And now he had accomplished

his task. It was done! he had seen, he had met the object of his

young, deep, all-absorbing affection--the object of all his regrets,

the undesigning cause of all his misery--he had seen her the wife of

another--he had seen her in sorrow and distress--he had helped even to

tear her heart, by pressing on her a separation from the man she

loved. He had marked every touch of her strong affection for Philip.

He had felt every cold and chilling word she had addressed to himself,

and yet he had borne it calmly--firmly, at least. Like the Indian

savage, he had endured the fire and the torture without a sign of

suffering; but still the fire and the torture had done their work upon

his corporeal frame.

The words in the letter, presented to him by De Coucy's page, swam

dizzily before his eyes, without conveying their defined meaning to

his senses. He saw that it was some new pang--he saw that it was some

fresh misfortune; but reason reeled upon her throne, and he could not

sufficiently fix his mind to gather what was the precise nature of the

tidings he received. He bade the page follow, however, in a hurried

and confused tone, and passed rapidly on through the castle hall into

the town, and to the lodging where he had left his retainers. His

horse stood saddled in the court, and all seemed prepared for

departure; and without well knowing why, but with the mere indistinct

desire of flying from the sorrows that pursued him, he mounted his

horse and turned him to the road.

"Shall we follow, my lord?" demanded his squire, running at his bridle

as he rode forward.

"Ha?--Yes!--Follow!" replied the count, and galloped on with the

letter the page had given him still in his hand. He rode on with the

swiftness of the wind; whenever his horse made the least pause, urging

him forward with the spur, as if a moment's cessation of his rapid

pace gave him up again to the dark and gloomy thoughts that pursued

him like fierce and winged fiends.

Still, his long habit of commanding his feelings struggled for its

ancient power. He felt that his mind was overcome, and he strove to

raise it up again. He endeavoured to recall his stoical firmness; he

tried to reason upon his own weakness; but the object to which he had

bent all his thoughts was accomplished--the motive for his endurance

was over, his firmness was gone, and reason hovered vaguely round each

subject that was presented to her, without grasping it decidedly.

During the last two years, he had raised up, as it were, a strong

embankment in his own mind against the flood of his sorrows, he had

fortified it with every power of a firm and vigorous intellect; but

the torrent had swelled by degrees, till its force became resistless;

and now it bore away every barrier, with destruction the more fearful

from the opposition it had encountered.

He rode on. The day was burning and oppressive. The hot mid-day sun

struck scorching on its brow, and his eyes became wild and bloodshot;

but still he rode on, as if he felt in no degree anything that passed

without the dark chamber of his own bosom. De Coucy's page had

hastened for his horse when he found the count about to depart, and

had galloped after. Seeing at length that his thoughts were occupied

in other matters, and that he held the letter he had received, crushed

together in his hand, Ermold De Marcy made bold to spur forward his

weary beast, and approaching D'Auvergne to say, "Is there any hope, my

lord, of your being able, in this matter, to relieve sir Guy?"

"Sir Guy!" cried D'Auvergne, suddenly checking his horse in full

career, and gazing in the page's face with an anxious, thoughtful

look, as if he strove with effort to recollect his ideas, and fix them

on the subject brought before him--"Sir Guy! What of sir Guy! Who is

sir Guy?"

"Do you not remember me, beau sire?" asked the page, astonished at the

wild, unsettled look of a man whose fixed, stern, immoveable coldness

of expression had often been a matter of wonder to the light, volatile

youth, whose own thoughts and feelings changed full fifty times a

day--"do you know me, beau sire?" he asked. "I am Ermold de Marcy, the

page of sir Guy de Coucy, who now lies in English bonds, as that

letter informs you."

"De Coucy in bonds!" cried the count, starting. Then, after gazing for

a moment or two in the page's face, he added slowly, "Ay!--Yes!--True!

Some one told me of it before, methinks. In bonds! I will march and

deliver him!"

"Alas! my lord!" answered the page, "all the powers in France would

not deliver him by force. He is in the hands of the English army, full

fifty thousand strong; and it is only by paying his ransom, I may hope

to see my noble lord freed."

"You shall pay his ransom," replied D'Auvergne--"yes, you shall pay

his ransom. How much does the soldan ask?"

"'Tis the English king who holds him, my lord," answered the page;

"not the soldan. We are in France, beau sire, not in Palestine."

"Not in Palestine, fool!" cried the count, frowning as if the page

sought to mock him. "Feel I not the hot sun burning on my brow? And

yet," he continued, looking round, "I believe thou art right.--But the

ransom, what does the soldan require.--De Coucy!--the noble De

Coucy!--to think of his ever being a prisoner to those infidel

Saracens! What does the miscreant soldan demand?"

Surprised and shocked at what he beheld, the page paused for a moment

till D'Auvergne repeated his question. Then, however, seeing that it

would be a vain attempt to change the current of the count's thoughts,

he replied, "I do not know, my lord, precisely; but I should suppose

they would never free a knight of his renown under a ransom of ten

thousand crowns."

"Ten thousand crowns!" cried D'Auvergne, his mind getting more and

more astray every moment, under the effort and excitement of

conversation, "thou shalt have double! Then with the remainder thou

shalt buy thee a flock of sheep, and find out some valley in the

mountains, where nor man nor woman ever trod; there shalt thou hide

thee with thy sheep, till age whitens thee, and death strikes thee.

Thou shalt! thou shalt, I tell thee, that the records of the world may

say there was once a man who lived and died in peace. But come to

Jerusalem! Come! and thou shalt have the gold. For me, I am bound by a

holy vow to do penance in solitude amongst the green woods of Mount

Libanus. Follow quick! follow! and thou shalt have the gold."

So saying, the count rode on, and Ermold de Marcy followed with his

train; speaking earnestly, though not very sagely perhaps, with

D'Auvergne's chief squire, concerning the sudden fit of insanity that

had seized his lord.

Notwithstanding the strange turn which the mind of count Thibalt had

taken, he mistook not his road to Paris, nor did he once err in the

various turnings of the city. On the contrary, with a faculty

sometimes possessed by madness, he seemed to proceed with more

readiness than usual, following all the shortest and most direct

streets towards the house of the canons of St. Berthe's; where, on his

arrival, he went straight to the apartments which had been assigned to

him by the good fathers; and calling for his treasurer, whom he had

left behind on his visit to Compiègne, he demanded the key of his

treasure.

The case which contained the sums he had destined to defray the

expenses of his return to the Holy Land was soon laid open before him.

For a moment or two, he gazed from it to the page, with one of the

painful, wandering looks of a mind partially gone, striving vainly to

collect all its remaining energies, and concentrate them on some

matter of deep and vital import.

"Take it!" cried he at length--"take what is necessary.--Tell thy

lord," he added with great effort, as if the linking each idea to the

other was a work of bitter labour--"tell thy lord, I would come--I

would strive to free him myself--I would do much.--But, but--Auvergne

is not what he was. My heart is the same--but my brain, youth! my

brain!"--and he carried his hand to his brow, wandering over it with

his fingers, while his eyes fixed gradually on vacancy; and he

continued muttering broken sentences to himself, such as, "This

morning!--ay! this morning.--The hot sun of the desert.--And

Agnes--yes, Agnes--her cold words." Then suddenly catching the eye of

the page fixed upon his countenance, he pointed to the gold,

exclaiming angrily, "Take it! Why dost thou not take it?--Get thee

gone with it to thy lord. Dost thou stay to mock. Take the gold and

get thee gone, I say!"

The page, without further bidding, kneeled beside the case, and took

thence as many bags of gold as he thought necessary for the purpose of

ransoming De Coucy; placing them one by one in his pouch. When he had

done, he paused a moment for licence to depart, which was soon given

in an angry "Get thee gone!" and, descending the stairs as quickly as

possible, he only stayed with the servants of the count d'Auvergne, to

bid them have a care of their lord; for that, to a certainty, he was

as mad as a marabout; after which, he mounted his horse and rode away.

Ermold de Marcy first turned the head of his weary beast towards the

east; but no sooner was he out of Paris, than he changed that

direction for one nearly west; and, without exactly retreading his

steps, he took quite an opposite path to that which he first intended.

This retrograde movement proceeded from no concerted purpose, but was,

in reality and truth, a complete change of intention; for, to say

sooth, the poor page was not a little embarrassed with the business he

had in hand.

"Here," thought he, "I have about me twelve thousand crowns in gold.

The roads are full of cotereaux, routiers, and robbers of all

descriptions; my horse is so weary, that if I am attacked, I must e'en

stand still and be plundered. Night is coming on fast; and I have

nowhere to lie--and what to do I know not. If I carry all this gold

about with me too, till I find my master, I shall lose it, by Saint

Jude! By the holy rood! I will go to the old hermit of Vincennes. He

cheated me, and proved himself a true man, after all, about that ring.

So I will leave the gold under his charge till I have learned more of

my lord, and to whom he has surrendered himself."

This resolution was formed just as he got out of the gate of the city;

and skirting round on the outside, he took his way towards the tower

of Vincennes; after passing which, he soon reached the dwelling of the

hermit in the forest of Saint Mandé, with but little difficulty in

finding his road. The old man received him with somewhat more urbanity

than usual, and heard his tale in calm silence. Ermold related

circumstantially all that had occurred to him since he followed his

lord from Paris, looking upon the hermit in the light of a confessor,

and relieving his bosom of the load that had weighed upon it ever

since his truant escapade to the good town of La Flêche. He told, too,

all the efforts he had made to avert the unhappy effects of Jodelle's

treachery; and pourtrayed, with an air of bitter mortification, that

interested the old man in his favour, the degree of despair he had

felt when, on mounting the hill above Mirebeau, he saw the English

army in possession of the city and country round about.

"And saw you no one who had escaped?" demanded the anchorite, with

some earnestness.

"No one," replied the page, "but our own mad juggler. Gallon the fool,

who had got away, though sore wounded with an arrow. From him,

however, I learned nothing, for he was so cursed with the pain of his

wound, that he would speak no sense; and when I questioned him

sharply, he shouted like a devil, as is his wont, and ran off as hard

as he could. I then rode forward to Tours," continued the page, "and

for a crown, got a holy clerk to write me a letter to the count

d'Auvergne, in case I could not have speech of him, telling him of my

lord's case, and praying his help; and never did I doubt that the

noble count would instantly go down to Tours himself, to ransom his

brother in arms; but, God help us all! I found his wit a cup-full

weaker than when I left him."

"How so?" demanded the hermit: "what wouldst thou say, boy? Why did

not the good count go? Speak more plainly."

"Alas! good father, he is as mad as the moon!" replied the page;

"something that happened this morning at Compiègne, his followers say,

must have been the cause, for yesterday he was as wise and calm as

ever. To-day, too, when he rose, he was gloomy and stern, they tell

me, as he always is; but when he came back from the château, he was as

mad as a Saracen santon."

The hermit clasped his hands, and knit his brows; and after thinking

deeply for several minutes, he said, apparently more as a corollary to

his own thoughts, than to the pages words, "Thus we should learn,

never for any object, though it may seem good, to quit the broad and

open path of truth. That word policy has caused, and will cause, more

misery in the world, than all the plagues of Egypt. I abjure it, and

henceforth will never yield a word's approval to aught that has even a

touch of falsehood, be it but in seeming. Never deceive any one,

youth! even to their own good, as thou mayest think; for thou knowest

not what little circumstance may intervene, unknown to thee, and,

scattering all the good designs of the matter to the wind, may leave

the deceit alone, to act deep and mischievously. A grain of sand in

the tubes of a clepsydra will derange all its functions, and throw its

manifold and complicated movements wrong. How much more likely, then,

that some little unforeseen accident in the intricate workings of this

great earthly machine should prove our best calculations false, and

whip us with our own policy! Oh! never, never deceive! Deceit in

itself is evil, and intention can never make it good."

Though, like most people, who, when they discover an error in their

own conduct, take care to sermonise some other person thereupon, the

hermit addressed his discourse to Ermold de Marcy, his homily was in

fact a reproach to himself; for, in the page's account of the count

d'Auvergne's madness, he read, though mistakenly, the effects of the

scheme he had sanctioned, as we have seen, for freeing the country

from the interdict. For a moment or two, he still continued to think

over what he had heard, inflicting on himself that sort of bitter

castigation, which his stern mind was as much accustomed to address to

himself as to others. He then turned again to the subject of De Coucy.

"'Tis an unhappy accident, thou hast told me there, youth," he said,

coming suddenly back, upon the subject, without any immediate

connexion;--"'tis an unhappy accident,--both your lord being taken,

and his brother in arms being unable to aid him; but we must see for

means to gain his ransom, and, God willing! it shall be done."

"'Tis done already, father hermit," replied the page: "the noble count

had not lost his love for sir Guy, though he had lost his own senses;

and albeit he was in no state to manage the matter of the ransom

himself, he gave me sufficient money. It lies there in that pouch,

twelve thousand crowns, all in gold. Now, I dare not be riding about

with such a sum; and so I have brought it to you to keep safe, while I

go back and find out the earl of Salisbury, who, I have heard say, was

an old companion of my master's in the Holy Land, and will tell me,

for his love, into whose hands he has fallen. I will now lead my beast

back to the village, by Vincennes, for carry me he can no farther;

and, though I could stretch me here in your hut for the night, no

stable is near, and my poor bay would be eaten by the wolves before

daybreak. To-morrow, with the first ray of the morning, I set out to

seek my lord, and find means of freeing him. 'Tis a long journey, and

may be a long treaty. Give me, therefore, two months to accomplish it

all; and if I come not then, think that the routiers have devoured me;

and send, I pray thee, good father, to king Philip, and bid him see my

lord ransomed."

"Stay, boy," said the hermit: "you must not go alone. To-morrow

morning, speed to Paris; seek sir François de Roussy, Mountjoy

king-at-arms; tell him I sent thee. Show him thy lord's case, and bid

him give thee a herald to accompany thee on thine errand. Thus shall

thou do it far quicker, and far more surely; and the herald's guerdon

shall not be wanting when he returns."

The page eagerly caught at the idea, and the farther arrangements

between himself and the hermit were easily made. After having yielded

a few of its gold pieces, to defray the expenses of the page's

journey, the pouch, with the money it contained, was safely deposited

under the moss and straw of the hermit's bed; which place, as we have

seen, had already, on one occasion, served a similar purpose. Ermold

de Marcy then received the old man's blessing, and bidding him adieu,

left him to contemplate more at leisure the news he had so suddenly

brought him.

It was then, when freed from the immediate subject of De Coucy's

imprisonment, which the presence of the page had of course rendered

the first subject of consideration, that the mind of the hermit turned

to the unhappy fate of Arthur Plantagenet. He paused for several

moments, with his arms folded on his chest, drawing manifold sad

deductions from that unhappy prince's claim to the crown of England,

joined with his present situation, and his uncle's established

cruelty. There were hopes that the English barons might interfere, or

that shame and fear might lead John to hold his unscrupulous hand. But

yet the chance was a frail one; and as the old man contemplated the

reverse, he gave an involuntary shudder, and sinking on his knees

before the crucifix, he addressed a silent prayer to Heaven, for

protection to the unfortunate beings exposed to the cruel ambition of

the weak and remorseless tyrant.

CHAPTER II.

There stood in ancient days, on the banks of the river Seine, a tall

strong tower, forming one of the extreme defences of the city of Rouen

towards the water. It has long, long been pulled down; but I have

myself seen a picture of that capital of Normandy, taken while the

tower I speak of yet stood; and though the painter had indeed

represented it as crumbling and dilapidated, even in his day, there

was still an air of menacing gloom in its aspect, that seemed to speak

it a place whose dungeons might have chronicled many a misery--a place

of long sorrows, and of ruthless deeds.

In this tower, some four months after the events which we have

recorded in the end of the last volume and the beginning of this, were

confined two persons of whom we have already spoken much--Arthur

Plantagenet and Guy de Coucy.

The chamber that they inhabited was not one calculated either to raise

the spirits of a prisoner by its lightsome airiness, or to awaken his

regrets by the prospect of the free world without. It seemed as if

made for the purpose of striking gloom and terror into the bosoms of

its sad inhabitants; and strong must have been the heart that could

long bear up under the depressing influence of its heavy atmosphere.

Its best recommendation was its spaciousness, being a square of near

thirty feet in length and breadth; but this advantage was almost

completely done away by the depression of the roof, the highest extent

of which, at the apex of the arches whereof it was composed, was not

above eight feet from the floor. In the centre rose a short column of

about two feet in diameter, from which, at the height of little more

than a yard from the ground, began to spring the segments of masonry

forming the low but pointed arches of the vault.

Window there was none; but at the highest part, through the solid bend

of one of the arches, was pierced a narrow slit, or loophole,

admitting sufficient light into the chamber to render the objects

dimly visible, but nothing more.

The furniture which this abode of wretchedness contained was as scanty

as could well be, though a pretence of superior comfort had been given

to it over the other dungeons, when it was about to be tenanted by a

prince. Thus, in one part was a pile of straw, on which De Coucy made

his couch; and in another corner was a somewhat better bed, with two

coverings of tapestry, placed there for the use of Arthur. There were

also two settles--an unknown luxury in prisons of that day, and by the

massy column in the centre stood a small oaken table.

At the side of this last piece of furniture, with his arms stretched

thereon, and his face buried in his arms, sat Arthur Plantagenet. It

was apparently one of those fine sunny days that sometimes break into

February; and a bright ray of light found its way through the narrow

loophole we have mentioned, and fell upon the stooping form of the

unhappy boy, exposing the worn and soiled condition of his once

splendid apparel, and the confused dishevelled state of the rich,

curling, yellow hair, which fell in glossy disarray over his fair

cheeks, as his brow rested heavily upon his arms. The ray passed on,

and forming a long narrow line of light upon the pillar, displayed a

rusty ring of iron, with its stauncheon deeply imbedded in the stone.

Attached to this hung several links of a broken chain; but though the

unhappy prince, when he looked upon the manacles that had been

inflicted on some former tenant of the prison, might have found that

comparative consolation which we derive from the knowledge of greater

misery than our own; yet the other painful associations, called up by

the sight, more than counterbalanced any soothing comparisons it

suggested; and he seemed, in despair, to be hiding his eyes from all

and every thing, in a scene where each object he looked upon called

up, fresh, some regret for the past, or some dread for the future.

A little beyond, in a leaning position, with his hand grasping one of

the groins of the arch, stood De Coucy, in the dim half light that

filled every part of the chamber, where that ray already mentioned

fell not immediately; and with a look of deep mournful interest, he

contemplated his young fellow-captive, whose fate seemed to affect him

even more than his own.

During the first few days of their captivity, all the prisoners taken

at Mirebeau had been treated by the crafty John with kindness and even

distinction; more especially Arthur and De Coucy, at least while

William Longsword, the Earl of Pembroke, and some others of the more

independent of the English nobility, remained near the person of the

king. While this lasted, the youthful mind of Arthur Plantagenet

recovered in some degree its tone, though the fatal events of Mirebeau

had at first sunk it almost to despair.

On one pretence or another, however, John soon contrived that all

those who might have obstructed his schemes, either by opposition or

remonstrance, should be despatched on distant and tedious expeditions;

and, free from the restraint of their presence, his real feelings

towards Arthur, and those who supported him, were not long in

displaying themselves.

Though ungifted with that fine quality which, teaching us to judge and

direct our own conduct as well as to understand and govern that of

others, truly deserves the name of wisdom, John possessed that

knowledge of human nature,--that cunning science in man's weaknesses,

which is too often mistaken for wisdom. He well understood, therefore,

that the good and noble--even in an age when virtue was chivalrous,

and when the protection of the oppressed was a deed of fame--would

often suffer violence and cruelty to pass unnoticed, after time had

taken the first hard aspect from the deed. He knew that what would

raise a thousand voices against it to-day, would to-morrow be

canvassed in a whisper, and the following day forgotten: and he judged

that, though the first rumour of his severity towards his nephew might

for a moment wake the indignation of his barons, yet, long before they

were reunited on the scene of action, individual interests, and newer

events, would step in, and divert their thoughts to very different

channels.

Lord Pembroke was consequently despatched to Guyenne, with several of

those unmanageable honest men, whose straightforward honour is the

stumbling-block of evil intentions. Lord Salisbury was left once more

to protect Touraine with very inefficient forces; and John himself

retreated across the Loire, with the prisoners and the bulk of his

army.

Each day's march changed his demeanour towards Arthur and his

unfortunate companions. His kingly courtesy became gradually scanty

kindness, manifest neglect, and, at last, cruel ill usage. The

revolted nobles of Poitou had given quite sufficient excuse for the

king's severity, towards them, at least; and with little ceremony,

either of time or manner, they were consigned to separate prisons,

scattered over the face of Maine and Brittany. Arthur and De Coucy

were granted a few days more of comparative liberty, following the

English army, strongly escorted indeed; but still breathing the free

air, and enjoying the sight of fair nature's face. At length, as the

army passed through Normandy, their escort, already furnished with

instructions to that effect, turned from the line of march, and

deposited them within the walls of the castle of Falaise; from which

place they were removed to Rouen in the midst of the winter, and

confined in the chamber we have already described.

Arthur's mind had borne up at Falaise; so far, at least, that, though

he grieved over the breaking of his first splendid hopes, and felt,

with all the eager restlessness of youth, the uncomforts of

imprisonment, the privation of exercise, the dull monotonous round of

daily hours, the want of novelty, and the wearisome continuity of one

unchanging train of thought; yet hope was still alive--nay, even

expectation; and ceaselessly would he build those blessed castles in

the air, that, like the portrait of an absent friend, picture forth

the sweet features of distant happiness, far away, but not lost for

ever. The air of the prison had there been fresh and light, the

governor mild and urbane; and though, there, he had been lodged in a

different chamber from De Coucy, yet his spirits had not sunk, even

under solitude.

At Rouen, however, though the jailer, for his own convenience, rather

than their comfort, placed the two prisoners in the same apartment,

Arthur's cheerfulness quickly abandoned him; his health failed, and

his hopes and expectations passed away like dreams, as they were. The

air, though cold, was close and heavy; and the dim, grey light of the

chamber seemed to encourage every melancholy thought.

When De Coucy strove to console him, he would but shake his head with

an impatient start, as if the very idea of better days was but a

mockery of his hopelessness; and at other times he would sit, with the

silent tears of anguish and despair chasing each other down his fair,

pale cheeks, hour after hour; as if weeping had become his occupation.

As one day followed another, his depression seemed to increase. The

only sign of interest he had shown in what was passing in the busy

world without, had been the questions which he asked the jailer,

morning and evening, when their food or a light was brought them.

Then, he had been accustomed anxiously to demand when his uncle John

was expected to return from England, and sometimes to comment on the

reply; but, after a while, this too ceased, and his whole energies

seemed benumbed with despair, from the rising till the setting of the

sun.

After it was down, however, he seemed in a degree to re-awaken; and

then alone he showed an interest in any thing unconnected with his own

immediate fate, when the day had gone, and by the light of the lamp

that was given them at night, De Coucy would relate to him many a

battle and adventure in the Holy Land--scenes of danger, and terror,

and excitement; and deeds of valour, and strength, and generosity, all

lighted up with the romantic and chivalrous spirit of the age, and

tinged with that wild and visionary superstition which cast a vague

sort of shadowy grandeur over all the tales of those days.

Then Arthur's cheek would glow with a flush of feverish interest; and

he would ask many an eager question, and listen to long and minute

descriptions, that would weary beyond all patience any modern ears;

and, in the end, he would wish that, instead of having embarked his

hopes in the fatal endeavour of recovering lost kingdoms, and wresting

his heritage from the usurper, he had given his life and hopes to the

recovery of Christ's blessed cross and sepulchre.

This, however, was only, as we have said, after the sun had gone down,

and when the lamp was lighted; for it seemed that then, when the same

darkness was apportioned to every one, and when every one sought a

refuge within the walls of their dwellings, that he felt not his

imprisonment so painfully as when day had risen--_day_, which to him

was without any of day's enjoyments. _He_ could not taste the fresh

air--_he_ could not catch the sunshine of the early spring--_he_ could

not stretch his enfeebled limbs in the sports of the morning--_he_

could not gaze upon all the unrivalled workmanship of God's glorious,

beauty-spreading hand. Daylight to him was all privation; and even the

sunbeam that found its way through the loophole in the masonry, seemed

but given to wring him with the memory of sweets he could not taste.

He thus therefore turned his back towards it, as we have at first

depicted him; and burying his eyes upon his arms, gave himself up to

the recollection of broken hopes, long-gone visions of empiry and

dominion, stifled aspirations after honour and fame, brilliant past

schemes of justice and equity, and universal benevolence, and all

those bright materials given to youth, out of which manhood preserves

so few to carry on into old age. Powerful feelings and generous

designs are, alas! too like the inheritance of a miser in the hands of

some spendthrift heir--lavished away on trifles in our early years,

and needed, but not possessed, in our riper age.

None had been more endowed in such sort than Arthur Plantagenet; but

it seemed the will of Fortune, to snatch from him, piece by piece,

each portion of his heritage, and to crush the energies of his mind at

the same time that she tore from him his right of dominion; and thus,

while he lay and pondered over all he had once hoped, there was a

touch of bitterness mingled with his grief, to feel that the noblest

wishes are but the mock and sport of Fate. Born to a kingdom, yet

doomed to a prison; as a child he had entered on the career of a man;

he had mingled the bright aspirations of youth with the ambitious

yearnings of maturity; and now his infancy lay crushed under the

misfortunes of manhood.

De Coucy gazed on him with feelings of deep and painful interest. What

he might have been, and what he was; his youth, and his calamities;

his crushed mind, and its former gallant energy, stood forth in strong

contrast to the eyes of De Coucy, as, leaning against the arch, he

contemplated the unhappy prince, whose thin, pale hands, appearing

from beneath the curls of his glossy hair, spoke plainly the ravages

that confinement and sorrow had worked upon him.

The knight was about to speak, when the sounds of voices approaching

were heard through the low small door that opened from their chamber

upon a stone gallery at the head of the staircase. De Coucy listened.

"Thou art bold!--thou art too bold!" cried one of the speakers,

pausing opposite the door. "Tell not me of other prisoners! Thine

orders were strict, that he should be kept alone.--What was 't to

thee, if that mad De Coucy had rotted with fifty others in a cell? Thy

charge is taken from thee. Speak not! but begone! Leave me thy

keys.--Thou, Humbert, stand by with thy men. Listen not; but if I

call, rush in. Mark me, dost thou? If I speak loud, rush in!"

The bolts were withdrawn, the key turned, and, the door opening, John,

King of England, entered, stooping his head to pass the low arch of

the doorway. Arthur had looked up at the first sound, and his pale

cheek had become a hue paler, even before the appearance of his uncle;

but, when John did at length approach, a quick sharp shudder passed

over his nephew's form, as if there had been indeed some innate

antipathy, which warned the victim that he was in presence of him

destined to be his murderer.

The king advanced a step or two into the chamber, and then paused,

regarding Arthur, who had risen from his seat, with a cold and

calculating eye. A slight smile of gratification passed over his lip,

as he remarked the sallow and emaciated state to which imprisonment

and despair had reduced a form but three short months before full of

life, and strength, and beauty.

The smile passed away instantly from a face little accustomed to

express the real feelings of the heart; but John still continued for a

moment to contemplate his nephew evidently little pained at the sight

of the change he beheld, whether from that change he augured

sufficient depression of mind to second his purpose of wringing from

his nephew the cession of his claims, or whether he hoped that

sickness might prove as good an auxiliary as murder, and spare him

bloodshed, that would inevitably be accompanied by danger, as well as

reproach. His eye then glanced through the sombre arches of the vault,

till it rested on De Coucy with a sort of measuring fixedness, as if

he sought to ascertain the exact space between himself and the knight.

Satisfied on this point, he turned again to Arthur.

"Well, fair nephew," said he, with that kind of irony which he seldom

banished from his lips, "for three years I asked you in vain to honour

my poor court with your noble presence. You have come at last, and

doubtless the reception I have given you is such, that you will never

think of departing from a place where you may be hospitably

entertained for life. How love you prison walls, fair nephew?"

Arthur replied not; but, casting himself again upon the settle,

covered his eyes as before, and seemed, from the quick rise and fall

of his shoulders, to weep bitterly.

"Sir King," said De Coucy, interposing indignantly, "thou art, then,

even more cruel than report gives thee out. Must thou needs add the

torture of thy words to the tyranny of thine actions. In the name of

God! bad man, leave this place of wretchedness, and give thy nephew,

at least, such tranquillity as a prison may afford."

"Ha! beau sire de Coucy," cried John with an unaltered tone. "Methinks

thou art that gallant knight who proclaimed Arthur Plantagenet King of

England in the heart of Mirebeau. His kingdom is a goodly one," he

continued, looking round the chamber, "gay and extensive is it! He has

to thank thee much for it!--Let me tell thee, sir knight," he added,

raising his voice and knitting his brow, "to the bad counsels of thee,

and such as thee, Arthur Plantagenet owes all his sorrows and

captivity. Ye have poisoned his ear against his kindred; ye have

raised up in him ambitious thoughts that become him not; ye have

taught him to think himself a king; and ye have cast him down from a

prince to a prisoner."

John spoke loudly and angrily, and at the sound the door of the vault

was pushed open, showing the form of a man-at-arms about to enter,

followed by several others. But the king waved them back with his

hand, and turning to Arthur, he proceeded:--"Hearken to me, nephew!

The way to free yourself, and to return to the bright world from which

you are now cut off, is free and open before you."[23]

--------------------

[Footnote 23: This conversation is reported by the chroniclers of the

time to have taken place previous to Arthur's confinement in the tower

of Rouen.]

--------------------

Arthur raised his head.

"Renounce your claim to kingdoms you shall never possess, and cast

from you expectations you can never realise, and you shall be free

to-morrow. I will restore to you your duchy of Brittany; I will give

you a portion befitting a Plantagenet; and I will treat you kindly as

my brother's son. What would you more? You shall have the friendship

and protection of the King of England."

"I would rather have the enmity of the King of France," cried Arthur,

starting up, as the long catalogue of all John's base perfidies rushed

across his mind, coupled with the offer of his friendship--"I would

rather have the enmity of the King of France! There is always some

resource in the generosity of a true knight."

"Thou art a fool, stubborn boy!" cried John, his eye flashing and his

lip curling at his nephew's bold reply--"thou art a stubborn fool! Are

not the kings of France the hereditary enemies of our race?"

"Philip of France is my godfather in chivalry," replied Arthur,

drawing somewhat nearer to De Coucy, as if for protection from the

wrath that was gathering on his uncles brow, "and I would rather place

my confidence in him, than in one who wronged my uncle Richard, who

wronged my father Geoffrey, and who has broken his word even in

respect to me, by thrusting me into a prison, when he promised his

barons, as they themselves have told me, to leave me at liberty and to

treat me well. He that breaks his word is no good knight, and I tell

thee, John of Anjou, thou art false and foresworn!"

John lost his habitual command over his countenance in the excess of

his wrath; and his features seemed actually to change under the

vehemence of his passion. He set his teeth; he clenched his left hand,

as if he would have buried his finger-nails in the palm; and,

thrusting his right under his crimson mantle, he evidently drew some

weapon from its sheath. But at that moment, De Coucy, taking one

stride in advance, opposed himself between the king and his nephew,

and with his head thrown back, and his broad chest displayed, prepared

at all risks to seize the tyrant, and dash him to atoms if he offered

any violence to the unhappy youth that fortune had cast into his

power.

John, however, possessed not the heart, even had he been armed in

proof, to encounter a knight like De Coucy, though unarmed; and,

sheathing again his dagger, he somewhat smoothed his look.

"By St. Paul!" he cried, taking pains, however, not to affect coolness

too suddenly, lest the rapidity of the transition should betray its

falseness, but carefully letting his anger appear to be slow in

subsiding--"by St. Paul! Arthur Plantagenet, thou wilt drive me mad!

Wert thou not my brother's son, I would strike thee with my dagger! I

came to thee, to give thee liberty, if this taste of imprisonment had

taught thee to yield thy empty pretensions to a crown thou canst never

win; and thou meetest me with abuse and insult. The consequences be on

thine own head, minion! I have dungeons deeper than this, and chains

that may weigh somewhat heavy on those frail limbs!"

"Neither dungeons nor chains," replied the gallant boy firmly, "no,

nor death itself, shall make me renounce my rights of birth! You judge

me cowardly, by the tears I shed but now; but I tell thee, that though

I be worn with this close prison, and broken by sorrow, I fear not to

meet death, rather than yield what I am bound in honour to maintain.

England, Anjou, Guyenne, Touraine, are mine in right of my father;

Brittany comes to me from my mother, its heiress; and, even in the

grave, my bones shall claim the land, and my tomb proclaim thee an

usurper!"

"Ha!" said John, "ha!" and there was a sneering accent on the last

monosyllable that was but too fatally explained afterwards. "Be it as

thou wilt, fair nephew," he added with a smile of dark and bitter

meaning--"be it as thou wilt;" and he was turning to leave the

apartment.

"Hold, sir, yet one moment!" cried De Coucy. "One word on my account.

When I yielded my sword to William of Salisbury, your noble brother,

it was under the express promise that I should be treated well and

knightly; and he was bound, in delivering me to you, to make the same

stipulation in my behalf. If he did do it, you have broken your word.

If he did not do it, he has broken his; and one or other I will

proclaim a false traitor, in every court of Europe."

John heard him to an end; and then, after eyeing him from head to foot

in silence, with an air of bitter triumphant contempt, he opened the

door and passed out, without deigning to make the least reply. The

door closed behind him--the heavy bolts were pushed forward--and

Arthur and De Coucy once more stood alone, cut off from all the world.

The young captive gazed on his fellow-prisoner for a moment or two,

with a glance in which the agitation of a weakened frame and a

depressed mind might be traced struggling with a sense of dignity and

firmness.

De Coucy endeavoured to console him; but the prince raised his hand,

with an imploring look, as if the very name of comfort were a mockery.

"Have I acted well, sir knight?" he asked. "Have I spoken as became

me?"

"Well and nobly have you acted, fair prince," replied De Coucy, "with

courage and dignity worthy your birth and station."

"That is enough then!" said Arthur--"that is enough!" and, with a deep

and painful sigh, he cast himself again upon the seat; and, once more

burying his face on his arms, let the day flit by him without even a

change of position.

In the mean while, De Coucy, with his arms folded on his breast, paced

up and down the vaulted chamber, revolving thoughts nearly as bitter

as those of his fellow-captive. Mirebeau had proved as fatal to him as

to Arthur. It had cast down his all. Arthur had struck for kingdoms,

and he had struck for glory and fortune--the object of both, however,

was happiness, though the means of the one was ambition, and of the

other, love. Both had cast their all upon the stake, and both had

lost. He, too, had to mourn then the passing away of his last hopes,

the bright dream of love, and all the gay and delightful fabrics that

imagination had built up upon its fragile base. They had fallen in

ruins round him; and his heart sickened when he thought of all that a

long captivity might effect in extinguishing the faint, faint

glimmering of hope which yet shone upon his fate.

Thus passed the hours till night began to fall; and all the various

noises of the town,--the shouts of the boatmen on the river, the

trampling of the horses in the streets, the busy buzz of many thousand

tongues, the cries of the merchants in the highways, and the rustling

tread of all the passers to and fro, which during the day had risen in

a confused hum to the chamber in which they were confined, died one by

one away; and nothing was at length heard but the rippling of the

waters of the Seine, then at high tide, washing against the very

foundations of the tower.

It was now the hour at which a lamp was usually brought them; and

Arthur raised his head, as if anxious for its coming.

"Enguerand is late to-night," said he. "But I forgot; I heard my uncle

discharge him from his office. Perhaps the new governor will not give

us any light. Yet, hark! I hear his footstep. He is lighting the

lantern in the passage."

He was apparently right, for steps approached, stopping twice for a

moment or two, as if to fulfil some customary duty, and then coming

nearer, they paused at the door of their prison. The bolts were

withdrawn, and a stranger, bearing a lamp, presented himself. His face

was certainly not very prepossessing, but it was not strikingly

otherwise; and Arthur, who with a keen though timid eye scanned every

line in his countenance, was beginning in some degree to felicitate

himself on the change of his jailer, when the stranger turned and

addressed him in a low and somewhat unsteady voice.

"My lord," said he, "you must follow me; as I am ordered to give you a

better apartment. The sire De Coucy must remain here till the upper

chamber is prepared."

Fear instantly seized upon Arthur. "I will not leave him," cried he,

running round the pillar, and clinging to De Coucy's arm. "This

chamber is good enough; I want no other."

"Your hand is not steady, sirrah!" said De Coucy, taking the lamp from

the man, and holding it to his pale face. "Your lip quivers, and your

cheek is as blanched as a templar's gown."

"'Tis the shaking fever I caught in the marshes by Du Clerc," replied

the other; "but what has that to do with the business of Prince

Arthur, beau sire?"

"Because we doubt foul play, varlet," replied De Coucy, "and you speak

not with the boldness of good intent."

"If any ill were designed, either to you or to the prince," replied

the man more boldly, "'t would be easily accomplished, without such

ceremony. A flight of arrows, shot through your doorway, would leave

you both as dead as the saints in their graves."

"That is true too!" answered De Coucy, looking to Arthur, who still

clung close to his arm. "What say you, my prince?"

"It matters little what the duke says, beau sire," said the jailer,

interposing, "for he _must_ come. Several of the great barons have

returned to the court sooner than the king expected; and he would not

have them find prince Arthur here, it seems. So, if he come not by

fair means, I must e'en have up the guard, and take him to his chamber

by force."

"Ha!" said Arthur, somewhat loosening his hold of De Coucy's arm.

"What barons are returned, sayest thou?

"I know not well," said the jailer carelessly; "Lord Pembroke I saw go

by, and I heard of good William with the Longsword; but I marked not

the names of the others, though I was told them."

Arthur looked to De Coucy as if for advice. "The ague fit has

marvellously soon passed," said the knight, fixing his eyes sternly

upon the stranger. "By the holy rood! if I thought that thou playedst

us false, I would dash thy brains out against the wall!"

"I play you not false, sir knight," replied the man in an impatient

tone. "Come, my lord," he continued to Arthur, "come quickly, for come

you must. You will find some fresh apparel in the other chamber.

To-morrow they talk of having you to the court; for these proud lords,

they say, murmur at your being kept here."

There was a vague suspicion of some treachery still rested on the mind

of De Coucy. The man's story was probable. It was more than probable,

it was very likely; but yet the knight did not believe it, he knew not

why. On Arthur, however, it had its full effect. He was aware that

lord Pembroke, together with several of the greater barons of England,

had wrung a promise for his safety, from king John, long before the

relief of Mirebeau; and he doubted not that to their remonstrance he

owed this apparent intention to alleviate his imprisonment.

"I must leave you, I am afraid, beau sire de Coucy," said the prince.

"I would fain stay here; but, I fear me, it is vain to resist."

"I fear me so too," replied the knight. "Farewell, my noble prince! We

shall often think of each other, though separated. Farewell!"

De Coucy took the unhappy boy in his arms, and pressed him for a

moment to his heart, as if he had been parting with a brother or a

child. He could no way explain his feelings at that moment. They had

long been companions in many of those bitter hours which endear people

to each other, more perhaps than even hours of mutual happiness; but

there was something in his bosom beyond the pain of parting with a

person whose fate had even thus been united with his own. He felt that

he saw Arthur Plantagenet for the last time; and he gave him, as it

were, the embrace of the dying.

He would not, however, communicate his own apprehensions to the bosom

of the prince; and, unfolding his arms, he watched him while, with a

step still hesitating, he approached the doorway.

The jailer followed, and held open the door for him to pass out.

Arthur, however, paused for a moment, and turned a timid glance

towards De Coucy, as if there was some misdoubting in his bosom too;

then, suddenly passing his hand over his brow, as if to clear away

irresolution, he passed the doorway.

The instant he entered the passage beyond, he stopped, exclaiming, "It

is my uncle!" and turned to rush back into the cell; but before he

could accomplish it, or De Coucy could start forward to assist him,

the new jailer passed out, pushed the unhappy prince from the

threshold, and shutting the door, fastened it with bolt after bolt.

"Now, minion," cried a voice without, which De Coucy could not doubt

was that of king John, "wilt thou brave me as thou didst this

morning?--Begone, slave!" he added, apparently speaking to the jailer;

"quick! begone!" and then again turning to his nephew, he poured upon

him a torrent of vehement and angry vituperation.

In that dark age such proceedings could have but one purpose, and De

Coucy, comprehending them at once, glanced round the apartment in

search of some weapon wherewith he might force the door; but it was in

vain--nothing presented itself. The door was cased with iron, and the

strength of Herculus would not have torn it from its hinges. Glaring

then like a lion in a cage, the knight stood before it, listening for

what was to follow,--doubting not for a moment the fearful object of

the bad and bloodthirsty monarch,--his heart swelling with indignation

and horror, and yet perfectly impotent to prevent the crime that he

knew was about to be perpetrated.

"John of Anjou!" he cried, shouting through the door. "Bloodthirsty

tyrant! beware what you do! Deeply shall you repent your baseness, if

you injure but a hair of his head! I will brand your name with shame

throughout Europe! I will publish it before your barons to your teeth!

You are overheard, villain, and your crime shall not sleep in secret!"

But, in the dreadful scene passing without, neither nephew nor uncle

seemed to heed his call. There was evidently a struggle, as if the

king endeavoured to free himself from the agonised clasp of Arthur,

whose faint voice was heard, every now and then, praying in vain for

mercy, at the hands of the hard-hearted tyrant in whose power he was.

At length the struggle seemed to grow fainter. A loud horrific cry

rang echoing through the passages; and then a heavy, deadly fall, as

if some mass of unelastic clay were cast at once upon the hollow stone

of the pavement. Two or three deep groans followed; and then a

distinct blow, as if a weapon of steel, stabbed through some softer

matter, struck at last against a block of stone. A retreating step was

heard; then whispering voices; then, shortly after, the paddling of a

boat in the water below the tower--a heavy plunge in the stream--and

all was silent.[24]

--------------------

[Footnote 24: The French writers of that day almost universally agree

in attributing the death of Arthur to John's own hand. The English

writers do not positively deny it, and we have indubitable proof that

such was the general rumour through all the towns and castles of

Europe at the time.--See Guill. Guiart. Guill. de Nangis. Guill. le

Breton. Mat. Paris, &c.]

--------------------

CHAPTER III.

No language can express the joy that spread over the face of France,

when the first peal from the steeples of the churches announced that

the interdict was raised--that the nation was once more to be held as

a Christian people--that the barrier was cast down which had separated

it from the pale of the church. Labour, and care, and sorrow seemed

suspended. The whole country rang with acclamations; and so crowded

were the churches, when the gates were first thrown open, that several

hundred serfs were crushed to death in the struggle for admission.

Every heart was opened--every face beamed with delight; and the aspect

of the whole land was as glad and bright, as if salvation had then

first descended upon earth. There were but two beings, in all the

realm, to whom that peal sounded unjoyfully; and to them it rang like

the knell of death. Agnes de Meranie heard it on her knees, and

mingled her prayers with tears. Philip Augustus listened to it with a

dark and frowning brow; and, striding up and down his solitary hall,

he commented on each echoing clang, with many a deep and bitter

thought. "They rejoice," said he mentally--"they rejoice in my misery.

They ring a peal to celebrate my disappointment; but each stroke of

that bell breaks a link of the chain that held them together, secure

from my vengeance. Let them beware! Let them beware! or that peal

shall be the passing bell to many a proud knight and rebellious

baron."

Philip's calculations were not wrong. During the existence of the

interdict, the nobles of France had been held together in their

opposition to the monarch, by a bond entwined of several separate

parts, which were all cut at once by the king's submission to the

papal authority. The first tie had been general superstition; but this

would have hardly proved strong enough to unite them powerfully

together, had the cause of Philip's opposition to the church been any

thing but entirely personal. In his anger, too, the king had for a

moment forgotten his policy, and added another tie to that which

existed before. Instead of courting public opinion to his support, he

had endeavoured to compel his unwilling barons to co-operate in his

resistance; and by severity and oppression, wherever his will was

opposed, had complicated the bond of union amongst his vassals, which

the interdict had first begun to twine.

The moment, however, that the papal censure was removed, all those who

had not really suffered from the king's wrath fell off from the league

against him; and many of the others, on whom his indignation had

actually fallen, whether from blind fear or clear-sighted policy,

judged that safety was no longer to be found but in his friendship,

and made every advance to remove his anger.

Philip repelled none. Those on whose services he could best rely, and

whose aid was likely to be most useful, he met with courtesy and

frankness, remitted the fines he had exacted, restored the feofs he

had forfeited, and, by the voluntary reparation of the oppression he

had committed, won far more upon opinion, than he had lost by the

oppression itself. Those, however, who still murmured, or held back,

he struck unsparingly. He destroyed their strong holds, he forfeited

their feofs, and thus, joining policy and vengeance, he increased his

own power, he punished the rebellious, he scared his enemies, and he

added many a fair territory to his own domain.

The eyes of the pope were still upon France; and seeing that the power

for which he had made such an effort was falling even by the height to

which he had raised it; that the barons were beginning to sympathise

and co-operate with the king; and that those who still remained in

opposition to the monarch were left now exposed to the full effects of

his anger; Innocent resolved at once to make new efforts, both by

private intrigue, and by another daring exercise of his power, to

establish firmly what he had already gained.

Amidst those who still remained discontented in France, he spared no

means to maintain that discontent; and amidst Philip's external

enemies he spread the project of that tremendous league, which

afterwards, gathering force like an avalanche, rolled on with

overwhelming power, in spite of all the efforts which Innocent at last

thought fit to oppose to it, when he found that the mighty engine

which he had first put in motion threatened to destroy himself. At the

same time, to give these schemes time to acquire maturity and

strength, and to break the bond of union which war always creates

between a brave nation and a warlike monarch, he prepared to interpose

between John of England and Philip Augustus, and to command the

latter, with new threats of excommunication in case of disobedience,

to abandon the glorious course that he was pursuing in person on the

right of the Loire, at the moment when we have seen him despatch

Arthur to carry on the war on the left.

It was somewhere about the period of the events we have related in our

last chapter, and winter had compelled Philip to close the campaign

which he had been pursuing against John with his wonted activity,

when, one morning, as he sat framing his plans of warfare for the

ensuing year, a conversation to the following effect took place

between him and Guerin.

"--And then for Rouen!" said the king. "Thus cut off from all

supplies, as I have showed you, and beleaguered by such an army as I

can bring against it, it cannot hold out a month. But we must be

sudden, Guerin, in our movements, carefully avoiding any demonstration

of our intentions, till we sit down before the place, lest John should

remove our poor Arthur, and thus foil us in the chief point of our

enterprise. Three more such bright sunshining mornings as this, and I

will call my men to the _monstre_. God send us an early spring!"

"I fear me much, sire, that the pope will interfere," replied Guerin;

"repeated couriers are passing between Rome and England. He has

already remonstrated strongly against the war; and, I little doubt,

will endeavour, by all means, to put a stop to it."

"Ha, say'st thou?" said the king, looking up with a smile, from a rude

plan of the city of Rouen, round which he was drawing the lines of an

encampment. "God send he may interfere, Guerin! He has triumphed over

me once, good friend. It is time that I should triumph over him."

"But are you sure of being able to do so, sire?" demanded Guerin, with

his usual simple frankness, putting the naked truth before the king's

eyes, without one qualifying phrase! "The pleasure of resistance

would, methinks, be too dear bought, at the expense of a second

defeat. The pope is strengthening himself by alliances. But yesterday

the Duke of Burgundy informed me, that six successive messengers from

the holy see had passed through his territories within a month, all

either bound to Otho the emperor, or to Ferrand count of Flanders."

Philip listened with somewhat of an abstracted air. His eye fixed upon

vacancy, as if he were gazing on the future; and yet it was evident

that he listened still, for a smile of triumphant consciousness in his

own powers glanced from time to time across his lip, as the minister

touched upon the machinations of his enemies.

"I fear me, sire," continued Guerin, "that your bold resistance to the

will of the pontiff has created you at Rome an enemy that it will not

be easy to appease."

"God send it!" was all Philip's reply, uttered with the same absent

look, as if his mind was still busy with other matters. "God send it,

Guerin! God send it!"

The minister was mute; and, after a momentary pause on both sides,

Philip Augustus started up, repeating in a louder voice, as if

impatient of the silence, "God send it, I say, Guerin! for, if he does

commit that gross mistake in meddling in matters where he has no

pretence of religious authority to support him in the eyes of the

superstitious crowd, by the Lord that lives! I will crush him like a

hornet that has stung me!"

"But, my lord, consider," said Guerin, "consider that--"

"Consider!" interrupted the king. "I have considered, Guerin! Think

you I am blind, my friend? Think you I do not see? I tell thee,

Guerin, I look into the workings of this pope's mind as clearly as

ever did prophet of old into the scheme of futurity. He hates me

nobly, I know it--with all the venom of a proud and passionate heart.

He hates me profoundly, and I hate him as well. Thank God for that! I

would not meet him but on equal terms; and, I tell thee, Guerin, I see

all which that hatred may produce."

The king paused, and took two or three strides in the apartment, as if

to compose himself, and give his thoughts a determinate form; for he

had lashed himself already into no small anger, with the very thoughts

of the hatred between the proud prelate and himself. In a few moments

he stopped, and, sitting down again, looked up in the face of the

minister, somewhat smiling at his own vehemence. Yet there was

something bitter in the smile too, from remembrance of the events

which had first given rise to his enmity towards the pope. After this

had passed away, he leaned his cheek upon his hand, and, still looking

up, marked the emphasis of his discourse with the other hand, laying

it from time to time on the sleeve of the minister's gown.

"I see it all, Guerin," said he, "and I am prepared for all. This

arrogant prelate, with his pride elevated by his late triumph, and his

heart embittered by my resistance, will do all that man can do to

overthrow me. In the first place, he will endeavour to stop my

progress against that base unknightly king--John of Anjou: but he will

fail, for my barons have already acknowledged the justice of the war;

and I have already ten written promises to support me against Rome

itself, should Rome oppose me. There is the engagement of the Duke of

Burgundy. Read that."

Guerin took up the parchment to which the king pointed, and read a

clear and positive agreement, on the part of the Duke of Burgundy, to

aid Philip, with all his knights and vassals, against John of England,

in despite of even the thunders of the church--to march and fight at

his command during the whole of that warfare, how long soever it might

last; and never either to lay down his arms, or to make peace, truce,

or treaty, either with the king of England, or the bishop of Rome,

without the express consent and order of Philip himself.

Guerin was surprised; for though he well knew that--notwithstanding

his own office--the king transacted the greater part of the high

political negotiations of the kingdom himself, and often without the

entire knowledge of any one, yet he had hardly thought that such

important arrangements could have been made totally unknown to him. It

was so, however; and Philip, not remarking his minister's

astonishment--for, as we have said before, the countenance of Guerin

was not very apt to express any of the emotions of his mind--proceeded

to comment on the letter he had shown him.

"Ten such solemn agreements have I obtained from my great vassals,"

said he, "and each can bring full two thousand men into the field.

But still, Guerin, it is not the immense power that this affords

me--greater than I have ever possessed since I sat upon the throne of

France--'tis not the power that yields me the greatest pleasure; but

it is, that herein is the seed of resistance to the papal authority;

and I will water it so well, that it shall grow up into a tall tree,

under whose shadow I may sit at ease.--Mark me, Guerin, and remember!

Henceforth, never shall an interdict be again cast upon the realm of

France,--never shall pope or prelate dare to excommunicate a French

king; and should such a thing be by chance attempted, it shall be but

as the idle wind that hisses at its own emptiness. The seed is there,"

continued he, striking his hand proudly on the parchment,--"the seed

is there, and it shall spread far and wide."

"But even should the greater part of your barons enter into this

compact, sire," said Guerin, "you may be crushed by a coalition from

without. I do not wish to be the prophet of evil; but I only seek to

place the question in every point of view. Might not then, sire, the

coalition of the pope, the emperor, and the King of England--?"

"Might wage war with me, but could never conquer, if France were true

to France," interrupted the monarch. "Guerin, I tell thee, that an

united nation was never overcome, and never shall be, so long as the

world does last. The fate of a nation is always in its own hands. Let

it be firm, and it is safe."

"But we unfortunately know, sire," said the minister, with a doubtful

shake of the head, "that France is not united. Many, many of the royal

vassals, and those some of the most powerful, cannot be depended on.

Ferrand, count of Flanders, for instance. I need not tell you, sire,

that he waits but an opportunity to throw off his allegiance. There

are many more. Count Julian of the Mount has been openly a follower of

the court of John of England; and though he is now on his lands,

doubtless preparing all for revolt, he has left his daughter, they

say, as security for his faith at the court of Rouen. May we not

suppose, sire, that, when the moment comes which is to try men's

hearts in this affair, we shall find thousands who--either from fear

of the papal censure--or from personal enmity--or a treacherous and

fickle disposition--or some one of all the many, many circumstances

that sow treasons in time of danger and trouble--will fall off from

you at the instant you want them most, and go over to swell the ranks

of your enemies?"

"I do not believe it," replied Philip thoughtfully,--"I do not believe

it! The pope's authority in a war unconnected with any affair of the

church will have small effect, and if exerted, will, like a reed in a

child's hand, break itself at the first impotent blow. Besides, I much

doubt whether Innocent would now exert it against me if it were to be

used in favour of Otho of Saxony. He hates me, true! He hates me more

than he hates any other king; but yet, Guerin, but yet I see a thread

mingling with the web of yon pope's policy that may make it all run

down. Again, the war against John is a national, and must be a

popular, war. I will take care that it shall not be stretched till

France is weary of it; and John's weakness, joined with Innocent's

insolence, will soon make it a war against the nation generally, not

against the king personally. The barons will find that they are

defending themselves, while they defend me; and I will divide the

lands of him who turns traitor, amongst those that remain true. I tell

thee, Guerin, I tell thee, I would not for the world that this pope

should slacken his hand, or abate one atom of his pride. He is sowing

enemies, my friend; and he shall reap an iron harvest."

Philip's eyes flashed as his thoughts ran on into the future. His

brow knit sternly; his hand clasped tight the edge of the table by

which he was seated, and after a moment or two of silence, he burst

forth:--"Let him but give me the means of accustoming my barons to

resist his usurped power--one great victory--and then!"

"Then what, sire?" demanded the hospitaller calmly, his unimpassioned

mind not following the quick and lightning-like turns of Philip's

rapid feelings--"then, what?"

"Agnes!" exclaimed Philip, starting up and grasping Guerin's

arm--"Agnes and vengeance! By Heaven! it glads my very soul to see

Innocent's machinations against me--machinations that, either by the

ingratitude of others, or my revenge, shall fall, certainly fall, like

a thunderbolt on his head. Let him raise up pomp-loving Otho, that

empty mockery of a Cæsar! Let him call in crafty, fickle, bloodthirsty

John, with his rebellious, disaffected barons! Let him join them with

boasting Ferrand of Flanders! Let him add Italian craft to German

stubbornness! Let him cast his whole weight of power upon the die! I

will stake my being against it, and perish, or avenge my wrongs, and

recover what I have lost!"

"I fear me, sire--" said Guerin.

"Speak not to me of fear!" interrupted the king. "I tell thee, good

friend, that in my day I have seen but one man fit to cope with a

king--I mean, Richard of England. He is gone--God rest his soul!--but

he was a good knight and a great warrior, and might have been a great

king, if fate had spared him till time had taken some of the lion's

worst part from his heart, and sprinkled some cooler wisdom on his

brow. But he is gone, and has left none like him behind. As for the

others, I will make their necks but steps to gain the height from

which my arm may reach to Rome."

"'Tis a far way to Rome! sire," replied Guerin, "and many have

stretched their arm to reach it, and failed in the attempt. I need not

remind you of the Emperor Frederic, sire, who struggled in vain to

resist."

"Nor of Philip of France, you would say," interposed the king, with a

gloomy smile that implied perhaps pain, but not anger. "Philip of

France!" he repeated, "who strove but to retain the wife of his bosom,

when a proud priest bade him cast her from him--and he too failed! But

Philip of France is not yet dead; and between the to-day and the

to-morrow, which constitute life and death, much may be done. I

failed, Guerin, it is true; but I failed by my own fault. My eyes

dazzled with the mist of passion, I made many a sad mistake; but now,

my eyes are open, my position is changed, and my whole faculties are

bent to watch the errors of my adversaries, and to guard against any

myself. But we will speak no more of this. Were it to cost me crown

and kingdom, life, and even renown, I would thank God for having given

me the means of striking at least one blow for love and vengeance. We

will speak no more of it. The day wears."

It needed not the science of an old courtier to understand what the

king's last words implied; and Guerin instantly took his leave, and

left the monarch alone.

The truth was, that to thoughts of ambition, schemes of policy, and

projects of vengeance, other ideas had succeeded in the mind of Philip

Augustus. His was a strange state of being. He lived as it were in two

worlds. Like the king of old, he seemed to have two spirits. There was

the one that, bright, and keen, and active, mingled in the busy scenes

of politics and warfare, guiding, directing, raising up, and

overthrowing; and there was another, still, silent, deep, in the

inmost chambers of his heart, yet sharing more, far more, than half

the kingdom of his thoughts, and prompting or commanding all the

actions of the other. It was this spirit that now claimed its turn to

reign exclusively; and Philip gave up all his soul to the memory of

Agnes de Meranie. Here he had a world apart from aught else on earth,

wherein the spirit of deep feeling swayed supreme; and thence issued

that strong control that his heart ever exercised over the bright

spirit of genius and talent, with which he was so eminently endowed.

He thought of Agnes de Meranie. The fine chord of association had been

touched a thousand times during his conversation with Guerin, and at

every mention of her name, at every thought that connected itself with

her unhappy fate, fresh sorrows and regrets, memories sweet, though

painful,--most painful, that they were but memories,--came crowding on

his heart, and claiming all its feelings. As soon as the minister was

gone, he called his page, and bade him see if the canon of St.

Berthe's was in attendance. The boy returned in a few minutes,

followed by the wily priest, whom we have already heard of as the

confessor of Agnes de Meranie. Philip's feelings towards him were very

different from those he entertained towards Guerin. There was that

certain sort of doubt in the straightforwardness of his intentions,

which a cunning man,--let him cover his heart with what veil of art he

will,--can hardly ever escape. Philip had no cause to doubt, and yet

he doubted. Nor did he love the plausible kind of eloquence, which the

priest had some pride in displaying; and therefore he treated him with

that proud, cold dignity, which left the subject but little

opportunity of exercising his oratory upon the king.

"Good morrow, father," he said, bending his brows upon the canon:

"when last I saw you, you were about to speak to me concerning the

queen, before persons whom I admit not to mingle in my private

affairs. Now answer me, as I shall question you, and remember, a brief

reply is the best. When saw you my wife, the queen?"

"It was on the fifth day of the last week," replied the canon, in a

low sweet tone of voice, "and it was with sorrow mingled with hope--"

"Bound yourself, in your reply, by my question, sir clerk," said the

king sternly. "I ask you neither your sorrows nor your hopes. How was

the queen in health?"

"But frail, if one might judge by her appearance, sire," answered the

priest; "she was very pale, and seemed weak; but she said that she was

well, and indeed, sweet lady, she was like, if I may use a figure--"

"Use none, sir," interrupted the king. "Did she take exercise?"

"Even too much, I fear, beau sire," replied the canon. "For hours, and

hours, she wanders through the loneliest parts of the forest, sending

from her all her attendants--"

"Ha! alone?" cried the king: "does she go alone?"

"Entirely, sire," replied the canon of St. Berthe's, whose hopes of a

bishopric in Istria were not yet extinct. "I spoke with the leech

Rigord, whom you commanded to watch over her health; and he did not

deny, that the thing most necessary to the lady's cure was the air of

her own land, and the tending of her own relations; for he judges by

her wanderings, that her mind is hurt, and needs soothing and keeping

afar from the noisy turbulence of the world; as we keep a sick man's

chamber from the glare of the mid-day sun."

Philip heard him out, fixing his eyes on the wily priest's face, as if

seeking to trace the cunning in his countenance, that he was sure was

busy at his heart: but the canon kept his look bent upon the ground

while speaking; and, when he had done, judging that his words pleased,

by being indulged in a much longer speech than Philip had ever before

permitted him to make, he raised his eyes to the monarch's face, with

a look of humiliated self-confidence, which, though it betrayed none

of the secrets of his wishes, did not succeed in producing any

favourable impression on the king.

"Begone!" said the monarch, in not the most gentle tone possible; but

then, instantly sensible that his dislike to the man might be unjust,

and that his haughtiness was at all events ungenerous, he added, more

mildly, "Leave me, good father--I would be alone. Neglect not your

charge, and you shall feel the king's gratitude."

The canon of St. Berthe's bowed low in silence, and withdrew,

pondering, with not a little mortification, on the apparent

unsuccessfulness of schemes which, though simple enough, if viewed

with the eyes of the world at present, when cunning, like every other

art, has reached the corruption of refinement, were deeply politic in

that age, when slyness was in the simplicity of its infancy.

In the mean while, Philip Augustus paused on the same spot where the

priest had left him, in deep thought. "Alone!" muttered he,--"alone! I

have vowed a deep vow, neither to touch her lip, nor enter her

dwelling, nor to speak one word to her, for six long months, without,

prior to that period's return, a council shall have pronounced on my

divorce. But I have not vowed not to see her. I can bear this no

longer! Yon priest tortures me with tales of her sickness! He must

have some dark motive! Yet, she may be sick, too.--Ho! without there!"

The page who had before conducted the canon of St. Berthe's to the

presence of the king, now presented himself again.

"Gilbert!" said the monarch, "come hither, boy! Thou art of noble

birth; and art faithful and true, I well believe. Now, doubtless, thou

hast learned so much of knightly service, that you know, the page who

babbles of his lord's actions is held dishonoured and base.--Fear not,

youth, I am not angry. If I find you discreet, this hand shall some

day lay knighthood on your shoulder; but, if I find you gossip of my

deeds, it shall strike your ears from your head, and send you forth

like a serf, into the fields. With that warning, speed to the west

hall of the armoury. Thou wilt there find, in the third window from

the door, on the left hand, a casque, with the _êventaille_ cut like a

cross; a haubert, with a steel hood; a double-handed sword; a table of

attente, and other things fitting. Bring them to me hither, and be

quick."

The page sped away, proud to be employed by the monarch on an errand

usually reserved for his noblest squires; and returned in a few

minutes, bearing the haubert and the greaves; for the load of the

whole armour would have been too much for his young arms to lift

Another journey brought the casque and sword; and a third, the

brassards and plain polished shield, called a table of attente. The

whole armour was one of those plain and unornamented suits much used

in the first fervour of the crusades, when every other decoration than

that of the cross was considered superfluous.

Without other aid than the page could afford, whose hands trembled

with delight at their new occupation, Philip arrayed himself in the

arms that had been brought him; and, taking care to remove every trace

by which he could have been recognised, he put on the casque, which,

opening at the side, had no visor, properly so called; but which,

nevertheless, entirely concealed his face, the only opening, when the

clasps were fastened, being a narrow cruciform aperture in the front,

to admit the light and air. When this was done, he wrote upon a slip

of parchment the simple words, "The king would be alone," and gave

them to the page, as his warrant for preventing any one from entering

his apartment during his absence. He then ordered him to pass the

bridge, from the island to the tower of the Louvre, and to bring a

certain horse, which he described, from the stables of that palace, to

the end of the garden wall; and waiting some minutes after his

departure, to give time for the execution of his commands, the king

rose, and, choosing the least frequented of the many staircases in the

palace, proceeded towards the street.

In the court he encountered several of his serjeants-at-arms, and his

other attendants, who gazed coldly at the strange knight, as he

seemed, who, thus encased in complete steel, passed, through them,

without offering or receiving any salutation. Thence he proceeded into

the busy streets; where, so strong was the force of habit, that Philip

started more than once at the want of the reverence to which he was

accustomed; and had to recall the disguise he had assumed, ere he

could fancy the disrespect unintentional.

At the spot he had named, he found the page with the horse; but the

sturdy groom, whose charge it was in the stable, stood there also,

fully resolved to let no one mount him without sufficient authority:

nor was it till the sight of the king's signet showed him in whose

presence he stood, that he ceased his resistance. The groom, suddenly

raised to an immense height, in his own conceit, by having become, in

any way, a sharer in the king's secret, winked to the page, and held

the stirrup while the monarch mounted.

Philip sprang into the saddle. Laying his finger on the aperture of

the casque, to enjoin secrecy, and adding, in a stern tone, "On your

life!" he turned his horse's head, and galloped away.

CHAPTER IV.

It is strange to read what countries once were, and to compare the

pictures old chroniclers have handed down, with the scenes as they lie

before us at present. In the neighbourhood of great capitals, however,

it is, that the hand of man wages the most inveterate war with nature;

and were I to describe the country through which Philip Augustus

passed, as he rode quickly onward towards Mantes, the modern traveller

who had followed that road would search his memory in vain for scenery

that no longer exists. Deep marshes, ancient forests, many a steep

hill and profound valley, with small scattered villages, "like angel

visits, few and far between," surrounded the monarch on his onward

way; and, where scarcely a hundred yards can now be traversed without

meeting many and various of the biped race, Philip Augustus rode over

long miles without catching a glimpse of the human form divine.

The king's heart beat high with the thoughts of seeing her he loved,

were it but for one short casual glance at a distance; but, even

independent of such feelings, he experienced a delight, a gladness, a

freedom in the very knowledge that he was concealed from all the

world; and that, while wrapped in the plain arms that covered him, he

was liberated from all the slavery of dignity, and the importunity of

respect. There was a degree of romance in the sensation of his

independence, which we have all felt, more or less, at one time of our

lives, even surrounded as we are by all the shackles of a most

unromantic society, but which affected Philip to a thousandfold

extent, both from his position as a king, and from the wild and

chivalrous age in which he lived.

Thus he rode on, amidst the old shadowy oaks that overhung his path,

meditating dreams and adventures that might almost have suited the

knight of La Mancha, but which, in that age, were much more easily

attainable than in the days of Cervantes.

Of course, all such ideas were much modified by Philip's peculiar cast

of mind, and by his individual situation; but still the scenery, the

sensation of being freed from restraint, and the first bland air, too,

of the early spring, all had their effect; and as he had himself

abandoned the tedious ceremonies of a court, his mind, in sympathy, as

it seemed, quitted all the intricate and painful mazes of policy, to

roam in bright freedom amidst the wilds of feeling and imagination.

Such dreams, however, did not produce a retarded pace, for it wanted

little more than an hour to mid-day; a long journey of forty miles was

before him, and his only chance of accomplishing his purpose was in

arriving during those hours that Agnes might be supposed to wander

alone in the forest, according to the account of the canon of St.

Berthe's. Philip, therefore, spurred on at full speed, and, avoiding

as much as possible the towns, arrived near the spot where Rosny now

stands, towards three o'clock.

At that spot, the hills which confine the course of the Seine fall

back in a semicircle from its banks, and leave it to wander through a

wide rich valley for the distance of about half a league, before they

again approach close to the river at Rolleboise.

There, however, the chalky banks become high and precipitous, leaving,

in many places, but a narrow road between themselves and the water;

though, at other spots, the river takes a wide turn away, and

interposes a broad meadow between its current and the cliffs.

In those days, the whole of the soil in that part of the country was

covered with wood. The hills, and the valleys, and the plains round

Rosny and Rolleboise, were all forest ground; and the trees absolutely

dipped themselves in the Seine. To the left, a little before reaching

the chapel of Notre Dame de Rosny, the road on which Philip had

hitherto proceeded turned off into the heart of Normandy; and such was

the direct way to the castle in which Agnes de Meranie had fixed her

dwelling; but to the right, nearly in the same line as the present

road to Rouen, lay another lesser path, which, crossing the woods in

the immediate vicinity of the château, was the one that Philip judged

fit to follow.

The road here first wound along down to the very banks of the Seine;

and then, quitting it at the little hamlet of Rolleboise, mounted the

steep hill, and dipping down rapidly again, skirted between the high

chalky banks on the left, and a small plain of underwood that lay on

the right towards the river.

Dug deep into the heart of the cliff, were then to be seen, as now, a

variety of caves said to have been hollowed by the heathen Normans on

their first invasion of France, some yawning and bare, but most of

them covered over with underwood and climbing plants.

By the side of one of the largest of these had grown a gigantic oak,

which, stretching its arms above, formed a sort of shady bower round

the entrance. Various signs of its being inhabited struck Philip's eye

as he approached, such as a distinct pathway from the road to the

mouth, and the marks of recent fire; but, as there was at that time

scarcely a forest in France which had not its hermit--and as many of

these, from some strange troglodytical propensity, had abjured all

habitations made with hands--the sight at first excited no surprise in

the bosom of the monarch. It was different, however, when, as he

passed by, he beheld hanging on the lowest of the oak's leafless

branches, a knight's gauntlet, and he almost fancied that one of the

romances of the day were realised, and that the next moment he should

behold some grave enchanter, or some learned sage, issue from the

bowels of the rock, and call upon him to achieve some high and

perilous adventure.

He rode by, notwithstanding, without meeting with any such

interruption; and, thoroughly acquainted with every turn in the woods,

he proceeded to a spot where he could see the castle, and a portion of

several of the roads which led to it: and, pushing in his horse

amongst the withered leaves of the underwood, he waited in anxious

hopes of catching but a glance of her he loved.

It is in such moments of expectation that imagination is often the

most painfully busy, especially when she has some slight foundation of

reality whereon to build up fears. Philip pictured to himself Agnes,

as he had first seen her in the full glow of youth, and health, and

beauty; and he then remembered her as she had left him, when a few

short months of sorrow and anxiety had blasted the rose upon her

cheek, and extinguished the light of her eye. Yet he felt he loved her

more deeply, more painfully, the pale and faded thing she was then,

than when she had first blessed his arms in all the pride of

loveliness; and many a sad inference did he draw, from the rapidity

with which that change had taken place, in regard to what she might

have since undergone under the pressure of more stinging and

ascertained calamity. Thus, while he watched, he conjured up many a

painful fear, till reality could scarcely have matched his

anticipations.

No Agnes, however, appeared; and the king began to deem that the

report of the confessor had been false, when he suddenly perceived the

flutter of white garments on the battlements of the castle. In almost

every person, some one of the senses is, as it were, peculiarly

connected with memory. In some it is the ear; and sounds that have

been heard in former days will waken, the moment they are breathed,

bright associations of lands, and scenes, and hours, from which they

are separated by many a weary mile, and many a long obliterating year.

In others, it is the eye, and forms that have been once seen are never

forgot; while those that are well known, scarce need the slightest,

most casual glance, to be recognised at once, though the distance may

be great, and their appearance but momentary. This was the case with

Philip Augustus; and though what he discerned was but as a vacillating

white spot on the dark grey walls of the castle, it needed no second

glance to tell him that _there_ was Agnes de Meranie. He tied his

horse to one of the shrubs, and with a beating heart sprang out into

the road, to gain a nearer and more satisfactory view of her he loved

best on earth.

Secure in the concealment of his armour, he approached close to the

castle, and came under the wall, just as Agnes, followed by one of her

women, turned upon the battlements. Her cheek was indeed ashy pale,

with the clear line of her brown eyebrow marked more distinctly than

ever on the marble whiteness of her forehead. She walked with her

hands clasped, in an attitude that spoke that utter hopelessness in

all earth's things, which sees no resource on this side of the grave;

and her eyes were fixed unmovingly on the ground.

Philip gazed as he advanced, not doubting that the concealment of his

armour was sure; but at that moment, the clang of the steel woke Agnes

from her reverie. She turned her eyes to where he stood. Heaven knows

whether she recognised him or not; but she paused suddenly, and

stretching her clasped hands towards him, she gazed as if she had seen

a vision, murmured a few inarticulate words, and fell back into the

arms of the lady who followed her.

Philip sprang towards the gate of the castle, and already stood under

the arch of the barbican, when the vow that the pope had exacted from

him, not to pass the threshold of her dwelling till the lawfulness of

his divorce was decided, flashed across his mind, and he paused. Upon

a promise, that that decision should be within one half year, he had

pledged his knightly honour to forbear--that decision had not yet been

given; but the half-year was not near expired, and the tie of a

knightly vow he dared not violate, however strong might be the

temptation.

The grate of the barbican was open, and at the distance of a few yards

within its limits stood several of the soldiers of the guard, with the

prévôt. Not a little surprise was excited amongst these by the sudden

approach of an armed knight, and at his as sudden pause.

"What seek ye, sir knight?" demanded the prévôt,--"what seek ye here?"

"News of the queen's health," replied the monarch. "I am forbidden to

pass the gate; but, I pray thee, sir prévôt, send to inquire how fares

the queen this morning."

The officer willingly complied, though he somewhat marvelled at the

stranger's churlishness in resting without the threshold. The reply

brought from within by the messenger was that the queen had been

seized but a few minutes before by one of those swoons that so much

afflicted her, but that she had already recovered, and was better and

more cheerful since. The message, the man added, had been dictated by

the lady herself, which showed that she was better indeed, for in

general she seldom spoke to any one.

It fell like a sweet drop of balm upon Philip's heart. There was

something told him that he had been recognised, and that Agnes had

been soothed and pleased, by the romantic mark of his love that he had

given; that she had felt for him, and with him; and dictated the reply

he had received, in order to give back to his bosom the alleviation

that his coming had afforded to her. With these sweet imaginations he

fell into a deep reverie, and forgetful of the eyes that were upon

him, paused for several minutes before the barbican, and then, slowly

returning on his steps, descended the hill to the thicket, where he

had left his horse; and throwing the bridle over his arm, led him on

the path by which he had come.

"The churl!" said one of the soldiers, looking after him. "He did not

vouchsafe one word of thanks for our doing his errand."

"Another madman! I will warrant thee!" said a second archer.

"He is no madman that," replied the prévôt thoughtfully. "Put your

fingers on your lips, and hold your tongues, good fellows! I have

heard that voice before;" and, with a meaning nod of the head, he

quitted the barbican, and left the soldiers to unravel his mystery if

they could.

In the meanwhile the king proceeded slowly on his way, chewing the cud

of sweet and bitter fancies, till he came near the same range of caves

which he had passed about an hour before. Every thing was still in the

same state; and no human being was visible. The gauntlet remained upon

the tree, seemingly only to have been touched by the wind of heaven;

and, scarcely thinking what he did, Philip approached, and reaching it

with his hand, took it down from the bough to which it was suspended.

As he did so, however, a noise in the cave showed him that his action

was not without a witness; and, in a moment after, a tall, powerful

man issued forth, and advanced towards him. He was clothed in plate

armour, somewhat rusted with the damp; but the fine tracery of gold,

by which it had been ornamented, was still visible; and the spurs and

belt which he wore proclaimed him a knight. He held his casque in his

hand, busying himself as he advanced to disentangle the lacings of it,

as if in haste to put it on; and his head was bare, exposing a

profusion of long tangled dark hair, which was just beginning to be

slightly touched with grey. His face was as pale as ashes, and wan

beyond all mortal wanness; and in his large dark eyes there shone a

brilliant, wavering, uncertain fire, not to be mistaken for aught but

insanity.

The king gazed on him, at once recognising his person; but hardly able

to believe that, in the wild lunatic before him, he saw the calm,

cold, tranquil Thibault of Auvergne.

In the meanwhile the count came forward, impatiently twisting in his

haste the already tangled lacings of his helmet into still more

intricate knots.

"Now, discourteous knight!--now!" cried he, glaring on the

king,--"now will I do battle with thee on the cause; and make you

confess that she is queen of France, and true and lawful wife of

Philip the king! Wait but till I have laced my casque, and, on horse

or on foot, I will give thee the lie! What! has the pope at length

sent thee to Mount Libanus to defy me? I tell thee, miscreant, I will

prove it against him, and all his host!"

The first thought that passed through the brain of Philip Augustus,

was the memory of his ancient hatred to the unfortunate Count

d'Auvergne, and the revived desire of vengeance for the injury he

believed him to have attempted against him. Those feelings, however,

in their full force, soon left him; and pity for the unhappy state in

which he saw him, though it could not remove his dislike, put a bar

against his anger. "I come not to defy you, sir knight," said the

king. "You mistake me. I am a stranger wandering this way----"

"The glove! the glove!" cried the count, interrupting him. "You have

taken down my glove--you have accepted the challenge. Have I not

written it up all over Mount Libanus, that whoever denies her to be

his lawful wife shall die? If you draw not your sword, I will cleave

you down as a traitor, and proclaim you a coward too. In Jerusalem and

in Ascalon, before the hosts of the crescent and the cross, I will

brand you as a felon, a traitor, and a coward.--Draw, draw, if you be

knight and noble!"

So saying, he cast his casque away from him on the ground; and,

drawing his broadsword, rushed upon Philip with the fury of a lion.

Self-defence became now absolutely necessary, for the king well knew

that he was opposed to one of the best and most skilful knights of

Christendom, whose madness was no hindrance to his powers as a

man-at-arms; and consequently, loosing the bridle of his horse, he

drew his sword, and prepared to repel the madman's attack.

The conflict was long and desperate, though, had not the natural

generosity of his disposition interfered, the king possessed an

infinite advantage over the Count d'Auvergne, whose head was, as we

have said, totally undefended. He refrained, however, from aiming one

blow at that vulnerable part of his antagonist's person, till his

scruples had nearly cost him his life, by the rings of his haubert

giving way upon his left shoulder. The Count d'Auvergne saw his

advantage, and pressed on with all the blind fury of insanity, at the

same time leaving his head totally unguarded. The heat of the combat

had irritated the monarch, and he now found it necessary to sacrifice

all other considerations to the safety of his own life. He opposed his

shield, therefore, to the thundering blows of his adversary; and

raising his heavy double-edged sword high above the count's naked

head, in another moment would have terminated his sorrows for ever,

when the blow was suspended by a circumstance which shall be related

hereafter.

CHAPTER V.

In the great hall of the ducal palace at Rouen, sat John, King of

England, now the undisputed possessor of the British throne; and,

though the blood of his nephew was scarce washed from his hands, and

the record of his crime scarce dry in the annals of the world, he bore

upon his lip that same idle smile, whose hideous lightness was the

more dreadful when contrasted with the profound depravity of his

heart. He was seated in an ivory chair, beneath a crimson dais,

gorgeously arrayed after the fashion of the day, and surrounded with

all the pomp of royalty. On his right hand stood the Earl of Pembroke,

with bitter grief and indignation written in his curled lip and

contracted brow, which found an answering expression in the

countenance of Lord Bagot, the Earl of Essex, and almost every English

peer in the presence.

John saw their stern and discontented looks, and understood their

import well; but, strange to say, the chief cause of his fear being

removed by the death of Arthur, he felt a degree of triumphant joy in

the angry sorrow of his barons; and calculated upon easily calming

their irritation, before any new danger should arise to menace him.

Indeed, with his usual false calculation, he already planned a new act

of baseness, which, by punishing one who had contributed to the death

of Arthur, by betraying him at Mirebeau, he hoped might, in some

degree, satisfy those whom that death had rendered discontented;

forgetting, in his utter ignorance of such a thing as virtue, that, in

the eyes of the honest, one base act can never repair another.

Close before the king, on the tapestry, which spread over the steps on

which his throne was raised, and extended some way into the hall,

stood no less a person than the Brabançois, Jodelle, now dressed in a

fine tunic of purple cloth, with a baldric of cloth of gold supporting

by his side a cross-hilted sword.

His air was the invariable air of a _parvenu_, in which flippant, yet

infirm self-conceit, struggles to supply the place of habitual

self-possession, and in its eagerness defeats its object. Consummate

vanity, when joined with grace, will sometimes supply the place of

high breeding; but a man that doubts in the least is lost. Thus stood

Jodelle, smiling in the plenitude, as he thought, of royal favour;

yet, with irritable knowledge of his want of right to appear in such a

presence, glancing his eye from time to time round the proud barons of

England, who, occupied with thoughts of more dignified anger, scarcely

condescended to despise him.

In the meanwhile, King John, as we have said, with a light and

sneering smile upon his lips, amused himself with the conceited

affectation of the Brabançois, who, enriched with the spoils of

Mirebeau and several other towns in Poitou, now presented himself to

claim the higher rewards that had been promised to his treachery. The

king smiled; yet, in the dark recesses of his cruel heart, he at the

very moment destined the man to death, with whom he jested as a

favoured follower.

The simile of a cat and a mouse is almost as musty as the Prince of

Denmark's proverb; and yet perhaps there is no other that would so

aptly figure the manner in which John of England played with the

traitor, of whose services he had availed himself to take his nephew

prisoner.